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Last week, I delivered a presentation about the recent report Web3D: The Next Major Internet Wave at the vBusiness Expo in Second Life. I'll share some of my experiences and observations, as I'm sure that during the coming year many of you will be invited to present at or attend virtual conferences and meetings -- if you haven't already. These tips may prove helpful.

The Virtual-Worlds Consortium for Innovation and Learning and SRI Consulting Business Intelligence today released the results of an online survey conducted early in March 2008 titled "Virtual Worlds and Collaborative Work: Survey Results." The organization surveyed 81 people who are active users of virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) about the use of virtual worlds for collaborative work. Most survey respondents (about 85%) were in North America; the rest were in Europe and Asia. Fewer than 20% of respondents are using virtual worlds mostly for pleasure and fun; 58% have a strong interest in how these technologies can serve for work. Some of the key findings:

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One of my roles here at Forrester for the past year or so has been chief Web 2.0 cat herder. I'm by no means a Web 2.0 expert -- I've just helped to coordinate our coverage. A large team of analysts has put our heads together to try to create a well-rounded Web 2.0 research agenda and formulate a consistent way to conceptualize and communicate about this giant hairball of a topic. We hope you're seeing the results in our published research. Below is one result of our team meetings: a high-level Web 2.0 framework.

This weekend I listened to a great panel discussion about virtual worlds and their impact on the future of work at the MetaverseU conference at Stanford University . The panelists were Byron Reeves, Co-Director of Stanford’s Human Sciences and Technology Advanced Research center, Christian Renaud, Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center, and Reuben Steiger, CEO of virtual worlds agency Millions of Us. The key takeway from the panel: work is changing dramatically and virtual worlds have a potentially — though not inevitably — huge role to play.

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At the MetaverseU conference at Stanford University this weekend, Ginsu Soon, VP of Business Affairs at Linden Lab, shared a framework for thinking about the future of virtual worlds. He said that in some ways it’s appropriate to draw an analogy between virtual worlds and the Web and in other ways it’s appropriate to draw an analogy between virtual worlds and the world in general. His main point — and it’s a good one — is don’t mix the two analogies.